


Jacket

by Lost_in_the_Light



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Manberg Festival on Dream Team SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Sleepy Bois Inc Angst, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 06:41:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29414313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_in_the_Light/pseuds/Lost_in_the_Light
Summary: Wilbur Soot never wore jackets the right way.
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo/TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	Jacket

For as long as Tommy could remember, Wilbur never wore a single jacket properly.

Not once. In fact, Tommy’s very first memory of his older brother consisted of a scene similar to a two-legged burrito chase: Wilbur, having stolen Phil’s big jacket, hauling his already lanky ten-year-old legs through the underbrush. Phil had struggled to get even close to him, yelling, blonde hair floppy in the summer heat, wings catching awkwardly against the dense jungle of vegetation. 

“Wilbur! Get back here! Give it back!”

“Catch me if you can, old man!”

“Wilbur!” Phil was huffing by then, cackling, little Wilbur zipping just out of arm's reach. When he finally managed to snag the end of a sleeve, they both went down in a pile of tangled fabric, laughing even harder when Tommy ran up and sprinted off with the jacket in a lawless game of tag.

Tommy didn’t get far, Techno had ensured, stepping out from the side of the house and snatching it from his wee little grip with an amused huff.

The afternoon had been nothing but chaos cupped beneath a bright blue sky until the cerulean aged to copper, and Phil had finally offered to strike a truce with his sons: give the jacket back, and he'll take them flying to watch the sunset over the sea.

Tommy remembered that day as a blur of emerald-greens and sunlight through the canopies and warmth and wide grins and soft fabric and violet-gray feathers in the salt-laced air.

* * *

For as long as Tommy could remember, Wilbur never wore a single jacket properly.

Not once. In fact, even on election day, all decked out in reds and whites and blues with tassels riding his broad shoulders and an overkill amount of ornate buttons and medals of the 'I am terrified of the price alone' type decorating his long, elegant coat. He had looked every part a president with his fancy things and his tall stance, all regal and serious and shit, but when Tommy came running like a hurricane, eagerly towing Tubbo along:

“Having trouble with the buttons, Toms?” He wasn’t ‘President Wilbur’ anymore, he was _Wilby_ , Tommy’s brother, _Tommy’s_. With a flash of his sun-flecked chocolate eyes and his teasing smile and a calloused hand ruffling Tommy’s blonde locks, he was Tommy’s Wilbur, Tommy’s Wilby Soot.

And he would send away Niki, even Fundy, just to crouch down (because though Tommy hated to admit it, Wilbur was still a six-foot-six twenty-something, quite a bit taller than Tommy), patiently, to teach the two kids how to do the clasps and how to stand like a president, just like him.

“You two got it now?”

Tommy and Tubbo had beamed with twin 'yes sir's and Wilbur had laughed, and fondly pulled them into a hug. Even then, his coat was worn in a cape, sleeves loose, and somehow, though who was surprised, he managed to look the best out of them all.

* * *

For as long as Tommy ~~wanted~~ could remember, Wilbur ~~sometimes~~ never wore a ~~most~~ single jacket properly.

 ~~Only once.~~ Not once. In fact, ~~the only exception~~ even when the gold in his eyes rusted red, even when his dirty curls seemed to only hang limply across his pale, empty, face.

Even when the ravine seemed to only darken like his gaze; hollow like his laugh. Even when he dealt with a god--no, a _demon_ \-- for his raw, cold, power and enough dynamite to eat the country up in greedy bites, to scar the land in gunpowder.

Even when he had seemed to snap, to disappear, to fall into a shadow:

“Let’s be the bad guys, Tommy.”

~~That isn’t Wilby’s voice it can’t be Wilby’s voice~~

And he had pulled on the strings of too many gods and mortals alike, had lost himself, lost his smile his laugh his warm eyes his hugs--

And the festival.

The fireworks.

The music on the stage coming to a warped, twisted end. Cat? Mellohi? Why would Tommy care when his world went up in flames? In sparks? In the fraction of a breath between death and life and ashes.

The stilted silence. The soft word, “Schlatt?” And he had known as Tubbo, doe-eyed and gentle, couldn’t even scream before--

Too late.

The colors: red, white and blue.

Wilbur didn't do more than look when Tubbo cried into Tommy's shoulder later that night, his suit jacket crumpled and burnt with buttons that had never been done up right in the first place. 

* * *

For as long as Tommy could remember, Wilbur never wore a single jacket properly.

Not once. In fact, Tommy’s last memory of ~~his~~ Wilbur had been a flash, a glance, a scarlet-stained thing that had the quality of a poorly shot polaroid: faint and regretful and too small, too short, too quick. It had been a spoiled, rotten kind of hope from ~~when? He didn't know why didn't he know when did things go wrong when did he fuck up~~ ; he knew that much, and twelve-feet-long raven wings weren’t allowed on the land.

When Phil finally arrived, or so Tommy had heard, it was too late. ~~It had been 'too late' for a while now; where was he when they first left? When they fought their first war? Felt the suffocating, feverish void of their first death?~~

A final salute.

_“It was never meant to be.”_

And suddenly, it didn’t matter. The land, the monsters, the discs.

They didn’t matter.

Because Wilbur never wore his jackets the right way: if the buttons were alright it was inside out, or worn as a cape with empty sleeves flapping in the wind. On top of those bullshit things he would, just to get a rise out of Tommy, sport it like a burrito roll before getting tackled to the ground.

So when he first didn’t. When he first _couldn’t_.

* * *

Tommy remembered that day as a blur of soul-sand and wither skulls, of ash-darkened skies and the reek of gunpowder and the swirl of charred feathers that were once silver, iridescent--

And he realized, looking back, his Wilbur had been dead for a long, long, time.

**Author's Note:**

> First time posting and it really shows doesn't it? I truly have no idea what I'm doing lol  
> I thought whatever Thing I managed to do turned out kinda interesting, so here it is I guess  
> Any advice + constructive criticism appreciated! Scream at me in the comments if u want :D


End file.
